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SOUTHERN  WOIffiN  AND  RACIAL 
ADJUSTMENT 


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Form  No.  51J, 


THE  TRUSTEES  OF  THE  JOHN  F.  SLATER  FUND 
Occasional  Papers,  No.  19 


SOUTHERN  WOMEN 


AND 


RACIAL  ADJUSTMENT 


BY 


L.  H.  HAMMOND 

AUTHOR  OF 

IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE:  AN  INTERPRETATION 
OF  SOUTHERN  LIFE;  IN  THE  GARDEN 
OF  DELIGHT ;  ETC. 


1917 


J.  p.  SELLOOMPANr,  INC.,  PRINTERS,  LVNCHBURO,  VIROmiA 


•.',vv.  ".■-■'•.'.;.•■ .,  ■"■■■■.-,■  ■■'■■'•it-  ■<  '•V»i'"C- ■•■'•?'    ■'._»-X»v- 


;.:;| 


Library  of  the 
University  of  North  Carolina 

Endowed  by  the  Dialectic  and  Philan- 
thropic Societies 


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This  BOOK    may  be    kept  ou 
WEEKS  ONLY,  and  is  subject  tc 
of  FIVE  CENTS  a  day  tliemxfter. 
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I 


SOUTHERN  WOMEN 

AND 

RACIAL  ADJUSTMENT 

BY 

L.  H.  HAMMOND 


1917 


NOTE. 

In  this  paper  Mrs.  Hammond  has  told  what  the  white 
women  of  the  South  have  done  and  are  doing  for  the  unprivi- 
leged black  women.  It  is  a  splendid  story  of  gallant  service. 
Its  sanity  and  patriotism  make  their  own  high  appeal. 

James  H.  Dillard. 
Charlottesville,  Va. 
October  15,  1917. 


NOTE  BY  THE  AUTHOR. 

For  the  opinions  expressed  and  the  conclusions  drawn  in 
the  following  pages  the  writer  alone  is  responsible ;  but  she 
wishes  to  acknowledge  her  indebtedness  to  the  following 
women,  without  whose  kindly  aid  in  gathering  the  facts  set 
forth  this  paper  could  scarcely  have  been  written : 

Mrs.  Percy  V.  Pennybacker,  president  of  the  National 
Federation  of  Women's  Clubs  during  the  last  biennial  period ; 
Mrs.  Edward  McGehee,  Mrs.  John  I.  Moore,  Mrs.  W.  S. 
Jennings,  Miss  Helen  Norris  Cummings,  Mrs.  Court  F. 
Wood,  presidents  respectively  of  the  State  Federations  of 
Mississippi,  Arkansas,  Florida,  Virginia,  and  the  District  of 
Columbia;  Mrs.  Z.  I.  Fitzpatrick,  late  president,  and  director- 
for-life  of  the  Georgia  State  Federation;  Mrs.  C.  P.  Orr, 
formerly  president  of  the  Alabama  State  Federation;  Miss 
Elizabeth  Oilman,  chairman  of  the  Advisory  Committee  on 
Work  for  Colored  People,  Baltimore  Civic  League;  Mrs. 
Gordon  Green,  president  City  Federation,  Jackson,  Miss. ; 
Mrs.  John  Love,  president  of  City  Federation  of  Clubs  and  of 
City  Federation  of  Missionary  Societies,  Meridian,  Miss. ; 
Mrs.  W.  L.  Murdoch,  formerly  vice-president  of  the  Southern 
Sociological  Congress ;  Mrs.  Leila  A.  Dillard,  State  president 
Georgia  W.  C.  T.  U. ;  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Preston  Allan,  chair- 
man of  the  Committee  for  Colored  Work,  Y.  W.  C.  A. ; 
Mrs.  W.  C.  Winsborough,  secretary  Woman's  Home  Mission 
Board,  Southern  Presbyterian  Church ;  Mrs.  B.  W.  Lips- 
comb, Home  Base  secretary  Woman's  Missionary  Council, 
M.  E.  Church,  South ;  Mrs.  L.  S.  Arrington  and  Mrs.  W.  D. 
Haas,  superintendents  Social  Service,  North  Georgia  and 
Louisiana  Conferences,  Woman's  Missionary  Council;  Mrs. 
H.  M.  Wharton,  chairman  Personal  Service  Committee, 
Southern  Baptist  Woman's  Home  Mission  Board ;  Mrs.  Wm. 
McGarity,  secretary  Texas  Baptist  Home  Mission  Society; 
Mrs.  Bolton  K.  Smith,  president  of  the  Bishop's  Guild,  State 
of  Tennessee. 


4  Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment 

The  writer  also  wishes  to  thank  the  following  colored 
women  for  their  kindness  in  furnishing  facts  in  regard  to 
colored  women's  organization  and  work : 

Mrs.  Booker  T.  Washington,  editor  National  Association 
Notes;  Mrs.  E.  E.  Peterson,  national  organizer  for  colored 
women,  W.  C.  T.  U. ;  Mrs.  H.  L.  McCrory,  president  of  the 
Colored  Branch,  Associated  Charities,  Charlotte,  N.  C. ; 
Mrs.  Sarah  Collins  Fernandis,  executive  secretary  of  the 
Advisory  Committee,  Civic  League,  Baltimore. 

She  would  also  thank  Bishop  Lloyd,  president  of  the 
General  Board  of  Missions  of  the  Episcopal  Church,  for 
many  courtesies;  Bishop  Guerry,  of  South  Carolina;  and 
Professor  Imes,  of  Tuskegee  Institute. 


L.  H.  Hammond. 


Dalton,  Ga. 

October  1,  1917. 


And  here  to  us  the  eternal  charge  is  given 

To  rise  and  make  our  low  world  touch  God's  high. 

Alfred  Noyes:     "In  Time  of  War.' 


SOUTHERN  WOMEN  AND  RACIAL  ADJUSTMENT. 

The  manners  and  morals  of  every  community  reflect  the 
standards  sanctioned  or  permitted  by  its  privileged  women. 
Individuals  stand  above  this  common  level,  blazing  ethical 
trails  into  the  unmoral  wilderness  of  our  wider  human  asso- 
ciations, and  draw  after  them,  here  and  there,  adventurous 
groups ;  but  there  can  be  no  mass  advance  until  the  individual 
impulse  tow^ard  righteousness,  which  is  justice  in  its  finest 
sense,  is  reinforced  by  a  common  standard  embodying  a  force 
greater  than  the  individual. 

These  common  standards  are  furnished,  actively  or  pas- 
sively, by  the  privileged  women,  from  whose  homes  they 
spread  into  the  community.  Racial  adjustment,  like  many 
other  moral  issues,  waits  on  the  leadership  of  these  women. 
Their  attitude  toward  it  is  thus  of  both  sectional  and  national 
importance;  and  their  increasing  development  of  broad 
humanitarian  standards  in  racial  relations  is  worthy  of  note. 

New  Thoughts  for  New  Times. 

One  great  obstacle  to  better  racial  adjustment  has  been  the 
retention  by  many  of  us  of  the  viewpoint  of  a  day  that  is  past : 
our  ideal  of  a  good  free  Negro  has  been  too  much  like  the  one 
that  fitted  a  good  slave.  Every  misfit  action  has  a  misfit  ideal 
at  its  root;  and  our  anomalous  crop  of  racial  relations,  with 
its  fruitage  of  lynchings  and  migrations,  is  the  result  of  trying 
to  grow  the  Negro's  life  to-day  on  past  ideals.  Usefulness  to 
his  master  is  a  slave's  chief  virtue;  that  of  a  freeman  is  his 
usefulness  to  the  human  race.  However  undeveloped  or 
ignorant  he  may  be,  the  standard  of  value  is  shifted  at  once 
from  an  economic  to  a  moral  base;  and  the  foundation  of  all 
morality  is  the  home.  Material  progress  waits  on  moral 
progress;  and  the  full  prosperity  of  Southern  industry  and 
commerce  waits  in  a  most  vital  sense  upon  the  moral  status 
of  the  Negro  home.     It  is  the  privileged  white  women  who 


6  Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment 

alone  can  fix  this  status  for  the  entire  community,  building  it 
up  in  white  respect,  and  helping  the  better  class  of  colored 
women  to  build  it  up  in  colored  life. 

The  purpose  of  this  pamphlet  is  to  show  our  women's 
entrance  upon  this  great  humanitarian  and  patriotic  service. 
To  perform  it  they  are  adventuring  into  the  unknown,  dis- 
covering their  cooks  and  washerwomen  as  women  beset  by 
womanhood's  clamorous  demands  and  utterly  unable  to  meet 
them  without  help  and  sympathy.  It  is  out  of  this  thought  of 
privileged  white  women  for  these  handicapped  mothers,  chil- 
dren, and  homes  that  the  eventual  adjustment  of  our  bi-racial 
Southern  life  will  come. 

Beginnings. 

All  women's  modern  activities  began  in  individualistic 
religious  service.  The  old  Dorcas  and  missionary  societies 
first  widened  their  horizon  to  include  conditions  beyond  their 
homes,  and  taught  them  teamwork;  which  overflowed,  in 
time,  into  the  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union,  the 
early  cultural  clubs,  and  the  Federation.  The  interest  of 
Southern  women  in  the  welfare  of  "free  people  of  color" 
follows  this  line  of  development. 

Their  first  service  to  the  freed  Negroes  was  purely 
religious  and  individual.  In  a  number  of  states  colored 
Sunday  schools  were  taught  here  and  there  by  women  of  the 
first  families.  The  Episcopal  Bishop  of  South  Carolina 
reports  plantation  Sunday  schools  conducted  by  such  women 
which  run  back  from  forty  to  sixty  years  without  a  break. 
In  the  darkest  days  of  the  last  century  these  scattered  schools 
kept  alive  a  sense  of  the  responsibility  of  the  privileged 
woman  to  the  unprivileged. 

The  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union. 

Through  this  body  Southern  women  took  their  first  steps 
in  organized  service.  Work  among  Negroes  was  decided  on 
at  a  meeting  in  Chattanooga  in  1871.     A  prominent  South 


Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment  7 

Carolinian,  as  superintendent  of  Colored  Work,  spoke  to  and 
for  the  Negroes  throughout  the  South.  From  that  time  the 
policy  of  the  Southern  state  organizations  has  been  to  promote 
temperance  work  among  Negroes  as  part  of  each  local 
union's  duty.  Although  this  has  never  been  thoroughly 
carried  out,  and  many  women  are  indifferent,  in  this  as  in 
every  group,  to  Negro  welfare  and  to  the  interdependence  of 
their  good  and  ours,  yet  few  could  be  found  who  would 
oppose  the  policy.  In  all  local  campaigns  the  Negroes  are 
included.  Some  of  the  Union's  most  noted  speakers  are 
Southern  women,  and  in  the  South  they  never  speak  without 
some  strong  word  for  the  Negro,  and  especially  for  the  Negro 
woman.  A  place  for  colored  people  is  almost  invariably 
reserved  at  the  w^hite  meetings ;  and,  when  time  permits,  the 
speakers  address  colored  gatherings,  to  which  they  are  accom- 
panied by  local  white  leaders. 

When  Atlanta  went  dry  in  1885  the  white  women  held 
prayer-meetings  with  the  colored  women  throughout  the  city ; 
and  it  was  publicly  acknowledged  that  the  colored  women, 
backed  by  their  pastors,  had  contributed  largely  to  the  victory. 
In  the  worst  days  of  our  convict  camps  the  Georgia  Union  led 
and  won  a  fight  for  the  segregation  and  protection  of  the 
women  prisoners.  The  treatment  of  colored  women  in  the 
camps  was  the  avowed  cause  of  this  campaign. 

The  attitude  of  the  Unions  has  had  far-reaching  effects. 
Their  viewpoint  has  been  more  humanitarian  than  racial,  and 
almost  unconsciously  they  have  carried  into  thousands  of  com- 
munities a  latent  thought  of  the  common  human  needs  of 
white  and  black.  This  thought,  in  the  last  fifteen  years,  is 
growing  in  the  organized  church  work  of  Southern  women, 
and  has  been  carried  by  the  church  women  into  the  wider  asso- 
ciations of  their  Federation  community  work. 

Southern  Methodist  Women. 

y        The  first  organized  body  of  church  women  to  take  up  work 
for  colored  people  was  the  Southern  Methodist  Home  Mission 


8  Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment 

Society,  now  merged  with  the  Foreign  Society  in  the 
Women's  Missionary  Council  of  that  church.  In  1900  they 
decided  to  open  an  industrial  department  for  girls  in  the 
school  at  Augusta,  Ga.,  maintained  by  their  church  for  the 
training  of  colored  ministers  and  teachers.  The  work  met 
with  strong  opposition  at  first,  but  has  won  its  way  to  general 
respect  and  support,  as  is  evidenced  by  its  increasing  develop- 
ment. The  Council  now  operates,  in  addition  to  this  indus- 
trial work,  two  settlements,  one  at  Augusta,  the  other  at 
Nashville,  Tenn.  In  both  places  the  Board  of  Directors  is 
made  up  of  locally  prominent  men  and  women  of  both  races. 
The  aim  is  community  betterment,  and  care  is  taken  to  interest 
the  better  class  of  colored  people  without  regard  to  denomina- 
tional lines.  The  older  students  of  the  colored  normal  schools 
and  colleges  assist  regularly  in  the  club  and  class  work,  gain- 
ing a  measure  of  training  in  community  work  which  will  bear 
fruit  in  their  home  communities. 

The  Nashville  enterprise  has  taken  on  unusual  significance, 
having  interested  people  of  both  races  of  all  denominations, 
the  Southern  white  schools,  and  the  colleges  for  Negroes 
maintained  by  Northern  people.  Courses  in  Social  Service  are 
offered  at  Fisk  University,  the  field  work  being  done  at  the 
settlement  under  the  direction  of  Southern  white  women. 
The  National  League  on  Urban  Conditions  Among  Colored 
People  cooperates  by  maintaining  scholarships  for  these 
courses  at  Fisk,  which  are  open  to  graduates  of  all  colored 
schools  of  a  certain  grade  in  the  South.  Vanderbilt  Uni- 
versity not  only  furnishes  lecturers  to  these  students  from  its 
faculty,  but  students  enrolled  in  the  Vanderbilt  School  of 
Religion  and  Philanthropy  help  in  the  work  of  the  settlement, 
thus  learning  the  needs  of  the  colored  poor.  These  initial 
steps  in  establishing  contact  and  understanding  have  already 
had  good  results.  A  Public  Welfare  League,  composed  of 
men  and  women  of  both  races,  is  in  operation.  Its  program 
includes  the  promotion  of  a  better  understanding  between  the 
races,  the  improvement  of  housing  and  working  conditions 


Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment  9 

for  Negroes,  and  the  training  of  students  in  methods  of  com- 
munity betterment  and  of  race  cooperation.  This  last  item  is 
of  especial  importance,  Nashville  being  to  an  unusual  extent 
a  school  center  for  both  races.  Among  the  things  already 
achieved  by  the  Public  Welfare  League  are  a  public  library 
for  Negroes,  the  organization  of  probation  work  for  colored 
juvenile  offenders,  and  two  playgrounds  for  colored  children, 
the  city  furnishing  equipment  and  salaries,  and  students 
trained  at  Fisk  and  in  the  settlement  acting  as  supervisors. 
A  further  development  of  this  cooperative  spirit  was  seen 
after  the  great  fire  of  1916,  when  the  white  Commercial  Club 
and  the  Negro  Board  of  Trade  worked  together  in  relieving 
some  1,500  colored  fire  sufferers. 

Local  Work  of  Southern  Methodist  Women. 

The  undertakings  above  described  are  under  the  immediate 
care  of  the  women's  central  missionary  organization;  but 
additional  work  for  the  4,700  local  auxiliaries  has  been  out- 
lined by  the  Council.  It  includes  service  in  colored  Sunday 
schools,  promotion  of  colored  missionary  societies,  school 
betterment,  recreational  facilities,  and  especially  the  forma- 
tion of  and  co5peration  with  colored  women's  Community  . 
Clubs  for  betterment  along  all  lines.  In  the  fall  of  1915  over 
200  auxiliaries  were  regularly  reporting  such  work.  Its  effect 
on  public  opinion  is  illustrated  by  the  experience  of  the  super- 
intendent of  Social  Service  for  the  Louisiana  Conference. 

'T  have  changed  my  views  about  the  Negroes  greatly  in  the 
last  few  years,"  she  said  recently.  "Our  Council  has  educated 
me ;  and  I  think  many  others  feel  the  same  way.  A  number 
of  our  Louisiana  societies  are  working  for  colored  people." 

An  initial  point  of  contact  established,  growth  in  sympathy 
is  certain.  Handicapped  motherhood  and  childhood  of  any 
race  make  to  privileged  women  an  appeal  which  is  irresistible 
once  it  is  understood.  The  women  of  the  North  Georgia 
Conference  recently  illustrated  this  fact. 


10        Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment 

This  body  has  shown  by  conference  action  from  time  to 
time  a  broadening  sense  of  obhgation  to  the  Negroes;  but  at 
the  1917  meeting  their  growing  insight  was  focused  on  a 
wrong  which  stirs  women  for  women  everywhere. 

The  perennial  petition  to  the  next  legislature  to  raise  the 
age  of  consent  from  ten  to  eighteen  years  was  up  for  its 
annual  endorsement  here,  as  at  every  gathering  of  women  in 
the  State.  This  year  the  W.  C.  T.  U.  was  leading  the  fight. 
In  their  communication  to  the  Methodist  women  they  referred 
to  the  fact  that  certain  legislators  had  openly  objected  to  the 
protection  the  bill  would  afford  colored  girls.  The  W.  C. 
T.  U.  regarded  this  an  added  reason  for  the  bill's  passage, 
and  the  Methodist  women  unanimously  adopted  a  resolution 
calling  for  "the  protection  of  the  childhood  and  womanhood 
of  Georgia  without  regard  to  race."  Other  bodies  of  women 
took  the  same  stand  and  will  keep  it  until  the  bill  is  passed. 

Southern  Presbyterian  Women. 

These  women  lead  the  South  in  Sunday-school  work  among 
Negroes.  Some  of  them  have  been  .teaching  in  colored  Sun- 
day schools  ever  since  the  war,  and  of  late  years  the  work  is 
spreading.  The  first  wife  of  President  Wilson  told  the  writer 
that  when,  as  a  young  girl,  she  went  to  New  York  to  study 
art  she  sought  out  a  colored  Sunday  school  and  taught  a  class 
there  the  two  years  she  was  in  the  city.  She  said  that  if  she 
had  come  from  any  section  but  the  South  she  would  have 
taken  some  other  fonn  of  church  work ;  but,  being  a  Southern 
girl,  the  daughter  and  descendant  of  slave  owners,  she  felt 
that  service  to  colored  people  was  her  especial  obligation; 
and,  true  to  Presbyterian  type,  she  sought  a  Sunday-school 
class. 

Of  late  years,  however,  these  women  are  leading  inter- 
denominational organizations  of  church  women  in  several 
cities  for  this  and  other  purposes.  The  Federation  of  City 
Missionary  Societies  at  Meridian,  ]\Iiss.,  is  typical. 


Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment         11 

The  Presbyterian  women  led  in  forming  the  Federation, 
which  organized  an  interdenominational  Bible  Teachers' 
Training  Class  from  the  various  colored  Sunday  schools.  It 
meets  weekly  in  the  colored  public  library  with  the  best  white 
teachers  of  the  city  in  charge.  Then  came  a  Story  Tellers' 
League  of  the  colored  teachers.  It,  too,  meets  weekly  at  the 
library,  a  white  woman  telling  a  story  to  be  repeated  by  the 
members  at  the  colored  schools.  The  monthly  stereopticon 
lectures  of  the  Missionary  Education  Movement  are  repeated 
before  the  colored  people;  and  on  one  night  of  Christmas 
week  the  Negroes  hold  a  musical  service  around  the  municipal 
Christmas  tree. 

In  Uniontown,  Ala.,  the  women  of  a  Presbyterian  Bible 
Class  decided  to  set  apart  a  definite  hour  each  week  when  each 
of  them  would  teach  the  servants  in  her  home  the  Sunday- 
school  lesson  for  the  next  week.  This  was  ten  years  ago. 
The  basal  need  in  racial  adjustment — a  human  as  distinguished 
from  an  economic  point  of  contact — being  thus  met,  vision 
and  a  broadening  sei-vice  have  followed.  An  interdenomina- 
tional Bible  Class  for  colored  women  was  formed,  officered 
by  colored  women  and  taught  by  white.  Class  committees 
were  formed  to  read  the  Bible  to  the  colored  sick  and  aged. 
This  brought  forward  various  problems  of  poverty,  and  led  to 
relief  work  guided  by  the  white  women  and  done  by  the 
Negro.  The  children  of  these  homes  came  into  view,  and  a 
white  teacher  maintains  for  them  a  weekly  story  hour. 

Institute  for  Colored  Women. 

A  significant  development  from  this  widely  scattered  local 
work  is  the  inauguration,  a  year  or  two  ago,  of  a  yearly 
Institute  for  Colored  Women  by  the  Southern  Presbyterian 
Women's  Home  Mission  Board.  It  is  held  at  Stillman  Insti- 
tute, Tuscaloosa,  Ala.,  the  church  training  school  for  colored 
Presbyterian  ministers.  In  1916  there  were  155  women  in 
attendance  from  six  states.  Leading  white  women  were 
present  from  the  Board,  as  well  as  from  Alabama  and  other 


12        Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment 

states.  The  courses  were  given  in  part  by  them  and  in  part 
by  colored  women.  They  included  Bible  study,  and  lectures 
on  moral  training  in  the  home,  the  home  and  the  school,  prac- 
tical home-making,  care  of  babies,  common  diseases,  sanita- 
tion, preservation  of  food,  etc. 

A  combination  of  the  Methodist  Community  Clubs  con- 
ducted by  local  auxiliaries  with  a  multiplication  of  such  yearly 
institutes  by  the  general  organizations  seems  an  ideal  plan  for 
missionary  societies  to  adopt.  Both  forms  of  sennce  are 
closely  fitted  to  the  needs  of  both  races;  for  the  rendering  of 
service  by  those  who  can  give  it  is  as  vital  to  moral  health  as 
is  the  receiving  of  it  by  those  who  need. 

Southern  Baptist  Women. 

The  Baptist  Women's  Board  has  no  specific  enterprise  for 
colored  people.  They  definitely  teach,  however,  through  their 
literature,  the  duty  of  local  Christian  service.  This  chiefly 
takes  the  form  of  helping  the  colored  Baptist  women  to  form 
and  conduct  missionary  societies.  This  practice  is  wide- 
spread. The  Home  ^Mission  Board  has  a  Department  of 
Personal  Service  which  officially  includes  work  for  Negroes; 
and  in  several  places  the  cooperation  in  missionary  work  above 
referred  to  is  leading  out  into  the  field  of  social  sendee, 
especially  in  those  interdenominational  missionary  federa- 
tions which  are  appearing  in  many  of  our  cities. 

A  fine  instance  of  local  social  service  was  found  in  Balti- 
more, where  the  Baptist  women  for  years  carried  on  a  number 
of  industrial  schools  for  colored  children.  Through  the 
children  the  mothers  were  reached,  and  a  strong  colored 
leadership  was  eventually  developed  which  warranted  turning 
over  the  work  to  these  women,  who  have  since  conducted  it. 

In  Texas  a  number  of  auxiliaries  are  doing  work  among 
colored  people.  In  Belton  the  white  college  girls,  enlisted  by 
the  Baptist  women,  gave  a  fine  missionary  program  recently 
in  one  of  the  colored  churches.  In  the  annual  State  meetings 
of  the  white  societies  the  officers  of  colored  Baptist  schools 


Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment        13 

regularly  present  their  work,  and  a  collection  is  taken  for 
them.  In  Austin  courses  in  Bible  study  are  given  for  colored 
women. 

A  remarkably  successful  cooperative  work  is  carried  on  in 
Birmingham,  Ala.,  under  the  leadership  of  two  white 
missionaries  of  the  Northern  Baptist  Women's  Board.  These 
women  have  not  only  a  present  enrollment  of  over  700  colored 
women  in  their  four-year  Bible  course,  but  they  have  enlisted 
the  white  women  of  the  city  as  teachers  of  these  classes. 
Every  denomination  is  represented,  and  the  teachers  have  the 
backing  of  their  local  missionary  organizations. 

Episcopal  Women. 

The  work  of  the  women  of  the  Episcopal  Church  is  on  a 
different  basis  from  that  of  all  other  churches.  It  is  purely 
auxiliary  to  the  General  Board  of  Missions,  which  determines 
the  activities  of  the  women,  appropriates  the  funds  raised  by 
them,  and  is  composed  entirely  of  men.  This  explains  their 
lack  of  initiative  in  church  work — a  lack  not  found  in  their 
Y.  W.  C.  A.  or  their  club  work.  As  church  members,  how- 
ever, their  directed  activities  include  the  work  for  Negroes 
maintained  by  the  General  Board.  This  w^ork  is  larger  and 
better  supported  by  the  Southern  dioceses  than  the  work  for 
Negroes  of  any  other  Southern  church,  and  in  this  the  women 
have  their  share.  They  also  share  in  the  local  work  of  the 
parishes  for  Negroes,  which  is  chiefly  the  maintenance  of 
parish  schools ;  and  where,  as  in  the  diocese  of  South  Georgia, 
the  church  employs  a  trained  colored  woman  for  work  among 
her  people  they  give  both  interest  and  money  to  the  work.  In 
Tennessee  the  Bishop  has  organized  a  Bishop's  Guild  among 
the  women  for  the  sole  purpose  of  promoting  the  educational 
work  of  the  diocese  for  Negroes. 

The  colored  women  of  the  dioceses  are  organized,  like  the 
white  women,  into  auxiliaries  of  the  Board  of  Missions ;  and 
the  diocesan  officers  of  the  white  organizations  not  only  attend 
the  annual  meetings  of  the  colored  women,  but  assist  them 


14        Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment 

throughout  the  year  in  their  work.  In  the  main,  however, 
the  social  service  activities  of  these  women,  as  of  the  women 
of  other  denominations,  find  their  largest  expression  outside 
of  their  church  organization. 

Y.  W.  C.  A,  Work  Among  Colored  Women. 

It  seems  well  to  consider  this  phase  of  the  subject  in  con- 
nection with  church  work,  though  it  is  more  recently  begun 
than  the  club  work.  For  years  the  only  Y.  W.  C.  A.  work 
among  Negroes  was  done  from  the  New  York  headquarters 
by  a  colored  secretary  in  charge  of  the  colored  schools.  There 
are  now  51  associations  in  as  many  schools,  and  interest  is 
aroused  in  50  more.  The  feeling,  however,  has  been  growing 
among  Southern  workers  that  the  time  has  come  for  coopera- 
tive work,  and  in  the  fall  of  1915  it  was  decided  on  at  a 
conference  held  i«  Louisville  in  which  women  of  both  races 
and  of  both  sections  took  part.  A  joint  committee  of 
Southern  white  and  colored  women  was  formed  both  to  pro- 
mote the  interests  of  the  college  associations  and  to  encourage 
the  formation  of  city  associations,  independent,  and  yet 
linked  as  "branch  associations"  to  the  central  white  organiza- 
tion of  their  respective  cities,  to  which  they  could  look  for 
guidance  and  cooperation,  after  the  plan  found  successful  in 
the  work  for  immigrant  races  in  the  North.  Associations  are 
already  in  operation  in  Richmond,  Charlotte,  and  St.  Louis, 
and  a  number  of  cities  have  made  application  for  organiza- 
tion, a  necessary  feature  of  the  application  being  the  endorse- 
ment of  the  local  white  association.  Jacksonville,  Fla., 
Winston-Salem  and  Wilmington,  N.  C,  and  Lynchburg,  Va., 
are  among  the  cities  applying  for  organization. 

Colored  student  conferences  are  now  held  annually  in  the 
South,  attended  by  Southern  white  women.  The  most 
promising  students  are  given  six  weeks'  intensive  training  in 
the  summer  at  New  York  headquarters  to  prepare  them  for 
future  secretarial  work  among  their  people.     Conferences  are 


Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment        15 

also  held  on  city  work,  and  here  both  races  and  both  sections 
are  brought  together,  and  a  broader  basis  is  being  laid  for 
mutual  understanding. 

Southern  Club  Women. 

The  facts  already  recited  show  Southern  women  shifting 
the  race  problem  from  a  sectional  to  a  human  basis,  and 
broadening  their  adjustment  to  those  Christian  standards 
which  fit  the  whole  Race  of  Man.  They  are  opening  the 
doors  of  our  sectional  life  to  the  free  winds  of  world-thought 
by  opening  our  hearts  to  the  needs  of  all  human  life.  When 
one's  heart  is  open  to  human  needs  the  life  of  the  world  flows 
into  it.  The  smallest,  most  secluded  dwelling  place,  the  daily 
round  of  pettiest  tasks,  is  then  filled  with  the  throb  of  a  com- 
mon aspiration,  the  love  of  a  common  justice,  the  thrill  of  a 
universal  hope.  This  liberty  of  soul  our  women  are  achieving 
for  us.  Like  all  the  priceless  things  of  life,  it  lies  close  to 
everybody's  hand,  inextricably  tangled  in  our  everyday  rela- 
tions and  living.  What  we  need  are  eyes  to  see  it — a  standard 
of  values  made  visible  from  the  unseen.  And  this  it  is  the 
of^ce  of  women  to  give. 

Their  initial  inspiration  has  come  from  the  churches  and 
church  teaching,  but  it  is  working  out,  in  the  main,  through 
organizations  outside  the  church.  The  beginnings  of  fifty 
years  ago  gathered  strength  in  the  W.  C.  T.  U.,  the  first  asso- 
ciation of  women  in  the  South  for  bettering  home  conditions. 
In  like  manner  the  social  service  development  of  recent  years 
germinated  in  the  church,  and  there  passed  its  first  critical 
stage;  but  its  flowering  is  outside  the  church,  as  its  fullest 
fruition  will  be.  The  church  women  have  created  outside  of 
their  churches  a  free,  flexible  organization  to  which  nothing 
that  concerns  human  life  is  alien,  and  where  denominational 
and  class  lines  do  not  exist.  And  here,  with  the  Christian 
inspiration  drawn  from  their  churches,  they  are,  half  uncon- 
sciously as  yet,  approaching  our  old  sectional  problems  from 


16        Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment 

the  human,  or  world,   standpoint.     The  results  are  already 
impressive;   their  implications  are  greater  still. 

The  Democracy  of  the  Microbe. 

Any  one  who  will  follow  common  sense  far  enough  will 
land  up  to  their  eyes  in  Christianity ;  the  two  refuse  to  accept 
divorcement.  The  club  women  came  upon  Christian  prin- 
ciples of  racial  adjustment  without  realizing  that  they  were 
dealing  with  racial  problems  at  all.  They  simply  started  out 
with  common  sense  as  their  guide  and  cleanliness  as  their 
goal. 

Their  clean-up  campaigns,  confined  at  first  to  the  white  part 
of  town,  were  pronounced  by  common  sense  to  be  only  fifty 
per  cent  efficient;  so  the  cooperation  of  colored  women  was 
sought.  The  club  of  Charlotte,  N.  C,  was  one  of  the 
pioneers — and  less  than  a  decade  ago.  They  invited  the 
women  of  the  colored  missionary  societies  to  a  meeting  at 
which  the  mayor,  the  health  officer,  the  white  and  the  colored 
women  all  spoke;  and  the  result,  attested  to  by  the  club 
president,  was  that  the  white  women  were  put  on  their  mettle 
to  keep  up  with  the  colored  ones  in  the  cleaning  that  follow^ed. 
The  city's  health  record  and  the  babies  flourished  in  conse- 
quence. 

In  this  way,  in  several  pioneer  towns,  a  common  meeting 
ground  was  discovered  for  the  women  of  the  two  races — the 
need  of  human  homes  for  cleanliness  and  health.  The  meet- 
ing of  human  needs  never  endangers  the  presentation  of  true 
racial  lines ;  this  the  women  clearly  sensed,  and  went  to  their 
new  work  joyously.  Common  sense,  prodded  by  the  microbe, 
had  prompted  the  first  step;  but  some  of  the  women  glimpsed 
a  background  of  religious  teaching  and  motive  with  which  the 
experiment  fitted  in,  and  from  which  it  drew  high  sanction. 

In  a  few  years  this  cooperation  for  community  health  has 
spread  throughout  the  South,  leavening  popular  thought  with 
a  consciousness  of  a  common  need,  which  must  be  met  for 


Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment        17 

both  races  or  for  neither.     And  while  that  leaven  works  the 
women  have  been  making  further  discoveries. 

The  Negro  Home. 

In  a  Georgia  city  a  clean-up  committee,  going  to  their 
work-section,  passed  through  a  section  in  charge  of  colored 
women.  There  had  been  heavy  rains,  and  the  committee 
beheld  several  blocks  of  colored  houses  standing  in  a  great 
pool  of  stagnant  and  slimy  water.  Inquiry  showed  that  the 
city  Board  of  Health  had  long  since  reported  the  need  of  a 
sewer  there,  and  the  Council  had  voted  to  put  it  in  ''as  soon 
as  funds  were  available."  The  cost  would  run  into  the 
thousands,  and  the  city  needed  many  things. 

But  to  the  club  women  a  new  thought  came  as  they  watched 
the  colored  children  playing  in  that  filth,  and  the  mothers 
plodding  in  the  marsh  of  their  little  yards — a  thought,  not  of 
Negro  houses,  but  of  Negro  homes.  It  is  a  big  club,  with 
wealth  and  prestige,  and  when  it  reinforced  the  request  of  the 
Board  of  Health,  as  it  promptly  did,  the  sewer  went  in,  and  a 
rankling  bitterness  went  out  of  a  number  of  Negro  hearts. 

Again,  some  club  women,  two  or  three  years  ago,  as  a  result 
of  one  of  these  clean-up  campaigns,  began  to  visit  occasionally 
a  colored  Mothers'  Club  to  talk  about  some  of  the  problems 
common  to  all  mothers.  Thus  they  learned  that  in  the 
hitherto  respectable  section  in  which  most  of  these  women 
lived  three  houses  of  vice  had  been  opened,  all  owned  by 
white  men,  though  one  was  run  by  a  colored  woman.  They 
had  made  short  work  of  her  case  after  a  fashion  of  their 
own :  she  had  simply  developed  an  insuperable  objection  to 
the  neighborhood,  and  had  forced  her  employer  to  let  her 
move.  But  against  the  white  women  they  were  helpless.  An 
appeal  to  the  police  would  have  closed  the  houses  in  that  city, 
but  they  feared  the  vengeance  of  the  proprietors  and  their 
women — a  thing  the  police  could  take  no  cognizance  of  until 
it  became  an  accomplished  fact.  Most  of  them  owned,  or 
were  buying,  their  homes ;  they  could  not  leave,  or  risk  being 
burned  out. 


18        Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment 

The  club's  Department  of  Civics  took  the  matter  up  at 
once,  and  without  involving  the  colored  women.  The  houses 
were  closed,  and  the  sense  of  the  common  needs  of  human 
homes  was  broadened  in  that  community. 

The  same  result,  in  another  city,  came  through  the  failure 
of  a  similar  effort.  A  club  committee  on  housing  inspected 
a  district  including  some  colored  homes.  They  ran  across  a 
colored  woman  of  the  finest  type  who  was  leading  a  little 
group  of  her  friends  in  some  home  mission  work  among  these 
Negro  poor.  She  was  handicapped  by  a  vice  resort  owned  by 
a  white  man  and  kept  by  a  Negro  woman  who  preyed  upon 
the  girls  of  the  neighborhood. 

The  bond  of  a  common  womanhood,  deeper  than  all  racial 
separateness,  asserted  itself,  as  it  will  when  such  an  emer- 
gency is  understood.  The  club  women  declared  war  on  that 
house  for  the  sake  of  colored  mothers  and  homes.  The  man, 
however,  had  brains,  money,  and  power ;  he  still  holds  nine 
points  of  the  law.  But  he  has  taught  those  women  some 
truths  about  the  needs  of  colored  homes  which  will  bear  fruit 
in  that  community  long  after  he  is  forgotten.  He  has  also 
prolonged  from  acquaintance  into  friendship  the  contact 
between  educated  women  of  the  two  races  who  made  common 
cause  against  a  common  foe. 

The  Educated  Colored  Woman. 

This  discovery  of  the  educated  colored  woman  is  of  deep 
significance.  It  is  she  who  must  lift  her  people,  but  she  can 
do  so  little  without  our  help!  The  experience  of  one  club 
woman  is  typical  here.  She  seized  upon  a  friend  in  the  street 
one  day  to  share  her  recent  discovery. 

"You   know   I'm   on   the   committee   to  meet   the   colored 

teachers  in  the  clean-up  campaign,"  she  began.     " is 

the  chairman  of  their  committee" — naming  the  head  of  a  local 
school.  "You  know  she's  a  college  graduate;  I've  heard 
about  her  for  years.  I  thought  she'd  be  a  sort  of  spoiled  cook, 
you  know — forward,  and  all  that.     Well,  she's  perfectly  fine! 


Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment        19 

I  didn't  know  there  were  any  Negroes  like  that.  That  com- 
mittee will  work  like  it  was  greased.  It  means  everything  to 
the  Negroes — and  a  lot  to  us,  too — to  have  a  woman  like  that 
at  work  among  all  these  colored  people  here." 

Her  face  was  alight  with  the  interest  of  her  discovery — a 
feeling  a  number  of  women  are  coming  to  understand  as  they 
make  similar  discoveries  in  their  own  communities.  Said  the 
president  of  a  city  federation  in  Mississippi  lately: 

"I  had  such  a  sense  of  adventure  when  I  first  began  to  get 
acquainted  with  those  women  here.  You  know  we  couldn't 
even  get  the  poorer  Negroes  to  clean  up  except  through  these 
educated  ones.  The  first  time  I  went  to  talk  to  them  about  it 
you  can't  think  how  rattled  I  was.  I'd  been  speaking  in  public 
for  years,  and  never  thought  about  being  embarrassed.  But 
they  looked  so  different  from  any  Negroes  I'd  known.  I 
didn't  know  what  their  thoughts  were  like,  or  how  to  get  at 
them.  I've  done  some  mental  gymnastics  since,  and  I  trust 
I'm  a  broader  woman  for  it." 

The  outstanding  feature  of  her  experience,  however,  and 
that  of  many  others,  was  the  finding,  in  these  uncharted 
regions,  the  same  old  landmarks  of  human  need.  They  are 
common  to  all  races  and  all  time,  and  a  realization  of  this  fact 
is  one  of  the  things  which  is  helping  us  to  broaden  out  of  a 
sectional  into  a  world  life. 

White  and  Black  in  Baltimore. 

So  far  as  the  writer  can  learn,  cooperation  in  Baltimore  has 
developed  further  than  in  any  other  city.  For  this  reason  a 
somewhat  detailed  account  seems  advisable. 

In  1911  the  Women's  Civic  League  appointed  an  Advisory 
Committee  on  Work  for  Colored  People.  A  fund  of  $1,000 
was  raised,  and  a  trained  colored  woman  secured  who  was  a 
graduate  of  Hampton  and  a  student  at  the  New  York  School 
of  Philanthropy.  She  was  made  "executive  secretary"  for 
the  white  Advisory  Committee,  and  under  its  direction  organ- 


20        Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment 

ized  the  colored  women  into  the  "Cooperative  Civic  League," 
of  which  she  became  president,  while  remaining  as  executive 
secretary  of  the  Advisory  Committee. 

The  work  was  opened  in  a  house  the  colored  women  under- 
took to  buy,  the  white  women  paying  the  worker's  salary  and 
other  expenses.  A  day  nursery  was  opened  which  the  latest 
report  shows  still  in  successful  operation.  The  mothers,  all 
of  whom  work  away  from  home,  pay  a  small  fee  which  co\-ers 
the  cost  of  food.  Investigations  by  the  colored  worker 
showed  many  mothers  of  school  children  in  the  neighborhood 
who  had  "to  lock  their  doors  in  the  morning  only  to  reopen 
them  at  night."  The  Advisory  Committee  secured  permission 
from  the  Board  of  Education  to  have  lunches  served  in  the 
schools.  This  is  done  at  a  charge  of  two  cents  per  child  per 
day,  the  Committee  meeting  the  deficit. 

The  following  activities  are  regularly  maintained :  settle- 
ment work,  with  clubs,  classes,  etc. ;  back-yard  and  vacant-lot 
gardening;  flower  market;  distribution  of  seed;  "a  series  of 
meetings  annually,  spreading  the  gospel  of  civic  betterment; 
the  organization  of  the  school  children  into  Clean  City  Clubs; 
and,  withal,  a  wholesome  spirit  of  mutual  helpfulness." 

The  agencies  cooperating  with  this  movement  to  meet  the 
human  needs  of  the  community  without  distinction  of  race 
make  an  impressive  list :  the  Federated  Charities,  Children's 
Aid,  Visiting  Nurses,  Johns  Hopkins  Hospital,  Juvenile 
Court,  Parole  Board,  Board  of  Health,  Babies'  Milk  Fund, 
and  the  Associations  for  Summer  Outings  and  on  School 
Attendance.  The  Civic  League  has  also  taken  an  active  inter- 
est in  the  movement  for  better  housing  for  colored  people,  in 
which  city  officials  and  leading  citizens  are  now  interested. 
A  club  member  is  on  the  city  committee  now  formulating 
plans  for  sanitary  houses  in  the  poorer  Negro  quarters,  and 
another  member  has  erected  in  one  of  these  sections  a  small 
group  of  sanitary  houses  as  an  investment,  and  also  as  a 
demonstration. 


Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment        21 

A  member  of  the  Civic  League's  Advisory  Committee 
writes : 

"The  day  nursery  is  for  us  just  the  opening  point  of  contact 
with  the  colored  women,  who  had  the  idea  for  a  long  time  of 
having  such  an  institution.  They  are  primarily  responsible 
for  the  nursery  and  its  upkeep,  while  the  Advisory  Board  is 
responsible  for  the  more  general  social  work.  The  committee 
of  white  women  meets  first  separately,  and  then  with  the  com- 
mittee of  colored  women,  and  our  general  work  has  been 
without  friction.  .  .  .  We  have  felt  that  there  should  be 
a  guiding  hand  with  them,  and  I  think  the  colored  women 
realize  that  v.e  are  very  deeply  interested  in  the  welfare  of 
their  race." 

The  white  committee  raises  $1,100  annually  for  the  work. 
Among  the  activities  promoted  are  a  class  of  forty-one 
organized  "for  the  study  and  practice  of  social  service" ;  a 
playground ;  an  athletic  league ;  and  work  for  better  health 
conditions  among  colored  people,  done  in  cooperation  with  the 
medical  faculty  of  Johns  Hopkins.  The  Committee  also  acts, 
by  request,  in  an  advisory  capacity  to  the  Home  for  Friend- 
less Colored  Children,  and  has  been  before  the  State  legis- 
lature to  secure  suitable  appropriations  for  it. 

The  response  of  the  colored  women  to  the  club  women  is 
noteworthy.  The  colored  teachers  are  active  in  the  school- 
lunch  work.  Fifteen  volunteer  colored  workers  teach  the 
classes  in  industries.  An  independent  colored  club  in  another 
part  of  the  city  is  developing  similar  work  and  cooperates 
with  the  Advisory  Committee. 

Club  Work  in  Many  States, 

The  briefest  summary  of  Southern  club  work  for  Negroes 
is  impressive.  Even  though  in  some  states  little  is  yet  done, 
the  trend  is  unmistakable.  Clean-up  cooperation  spreads 
everywhere.     In  many  cities  Baby  Week  includes  days   for 


22        Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment 

colored  folk.  In  Florida  and  Mississippi  fine  health  work  is 
being  done.  The  president  of  the  Mississippi  Federation 
writes : 

"The  Federated  Club  women  of  Mississippi  are  organizing 
the  Negro  women  in  Civic  Clubs  and  are  passing  on  their 
literature  and  helps  to  them.  They  are  of  the  greatest  help 
in  the  City  Beautiful  campaigns.  .  .  .  Frequently  the 
club  women  go  to  the  Negro  schools  and  give  health  talks. 
The  Negro  is  helping  us,  through  the  Civic  Clubs,  to  fight 
tuberculosis,  typhoid,  etc.  We  find  in  every  community  an 
intelligent  Negro  woman  to  act  as  a  leader  for  her  people. 
One  club,  in  its  paper,  gives  space  to  the  activities  of  its 
colored  Civic  League.  We  have  found  wherever  we  have  a 
Negro  club  there  is  uplift  and  a  reaching  out  for  more 
knowledge  in  sanitation  and  health." 

This  State  Federation  conducts  yearly  a  State-wide  "clean- 
est town"  contest  in  cooperation  with  the  State  Board  of 
Health,  and  the  women  make  special  mention  of  the  help 
given  by  the  colored  clubs.  The  extension  of  this  cooperative 
health  work  to  the  rural  districts  is  planned  by  this  vigorous 
Federation  for  the  immediate  future. 

In  Arkansas  the  State  president  reports  the  club  women 
active  in  the  organization  and  promotion  of  colored  clubs. 
Cooperation  in  sanitation  is  general,  and  health  conditions 
among  colored  people  are  improving.  The  State  Federation 
supports  a  colored  farm  demonstrator  and  a  colored  woman 
to  organize  canning  clubs.  These  two  have  general  super- 
vision in  ten  "black"  counties,  the  local  white  club  women 
finding  in  each  county  a  colored  woman  to  cooperate  with 
these  supervisors.  The  leading  women  of  the  Federation 
speak  to  colored  audiences,  and  as  an  organization  they  are 
helping  the  Negroes  of  Arkansas  to  better  health  and  living 
conditions. 

The  State  president  of  Georgia  reported  at  the  last  biennial 
that  the  moonlight  schools,  encouraged  by  the  club  women. 


Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment        23 

hoped  to  eradicate  illiteracy  among  both  races  by  1920.  Baby 
Week  is  commonly  observed  for  both  races.  This  Federation 
maintains  an  organizer  to  form  Junior  Civic  Leagues  in  the 
public  schools.  She  goes  to  schools  of  both  races,  and  over 
2,000  colored  children  were  enrolled  at  the  last  biennial.  The 
children's  pledge  covers  clean  speech,  loyalty  to  country,  per- 
sonal and  neighborhood  cleanliness,  kindness,  and  respect  for 
the  rights  of  others.  Instruction  in  sanitation  and  hygiene  is 
given. 

In  Virginia  the  Civics  and  Health  Departments  of  the  clubs 
are  giving  much  attention  to  health  and  civic  improvement 
work  among  colored  people.  They  are  also  stressing  the  need 
for  a  medical  inspection  of  schools  to  include  those  for  colored 
children.  Here,  as  in  all  the  states,  it  grows  more  common  to 
include  the  colored  people  in  the  prizes  offered  for  the  best 
gardens  and  back  yards.  The  probation  work  in  Virginia  is 
not,  so  far  as  I  can  learn,  connected  with  the  clubs ;  but  club 
women  are  members  of  the  probation  associations  in  various 
towns;  and  the  State  Board  of  Charities  and  Correction 
reports  cooperative  work  in  a  number  of  cities  where  colored 
volunteer  probation  officers  look  after  delinquent  colored 
children.  Individual  white  club  women,  too,  have  contributed 
generously  to  the  reformatory  for  colored  girls  enterprised  by 
the  colored  women's  State  Association  and  jointly  supported 
by  them  and  by  the  State.  The  Board  of  Trust  of  this  institu- 
tion is  composed  of  men  and  women  of  both  races,  these  club 
women  among  them. 

The  Federation  of  the  District  of  Columbia  promotes 
health  work  for  both  races,  a  colored  doctor  being  asked  to 
serve  with  the  Baby  Week  campaign  committee. 

Florida  is  active  in  health  work  for  colored  people.  In 
Jacksonville  they  have  secured  two  public  colored  nurses  for 
them,  and  also  two  district  nurses.  Prizes  for  improvement, 
home  gardens,  etc.,  are  given  by  several  clubs ;  Baby  Week  is 
widely  observed  for  both  races;  and  an  effort  is  being  made 
to  open  in'  Jacksonville,  with  State  Federation  backing,  a 
domestic  science  school  for  colored  women. 


24        Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment 

The  broadening  interest  of  the  Alabama  club  women  began 
in  an  investigation  made  some  years  ago  by  the  then  president 
of  the  State  Federation  into  the  criminal  statistics  of  the 
State.  This  investigation  was  undertaken  at  the  request  of  a 
State  officer,  and  was  a  revelation  to  her  in  regard  to  Negro 
criminality.  She  had  never  been  especially  interested  in 
colored  people  before,  she  said,  except  in  those  individuals 
known  to  her;  but  she  saw,  from  these  records,  that  some- 
thing was  radically  wrong  in  Negro  life,  and  set  herself  to 
find  out  what  it  was.  She  first  investigated  the  schools, 
which,  she  felt,  explained  much;  and  from  them  she  was  led, 
step  by  step,  into  a  further  study  of  colored  life.  Her  out- 
spoken sympathy,  her  understanding,  and  her  service  have 
had,  and  are  still  having,  wide  results. 

Some  Work  of  Local  Clubs. 

A  few  typical  instances  of  work  done  by  local  clubs  must 
suffice. 

Last  year  the  Atlanta  club  women  conducted  a  cooking 
school  for  colored  women  and  girls  which  had  an  attendance 
of  800.  They  announced  it  as  intended  primarily  for  colored 
home-makers,  and  not  for  the  purpose  of  furnishing  cooks 
for  white  homes. 

In  Augusta  the  Social  Service  Department  of  the  city 
Federation  secured  the  improvement  of  the  county  reforma- 
tory, occupied  almost  entirely  by  colored  children,  and  has 
taken  up  the  cause  of  the  youthful  delinquent  regardless  of 
race.  This  club  is  working  for  municipal  playgrounds  for 
both  races;  and  in  clean-up  and  temperance  campaigns,  as 
well  as  in  welfare  work  after  the  great  fire  of  1916,  they  have 
shown  a  broad  grasp  of  the  underlying  needs  common  to  all 
classes  and  races. 

Louisville  clubs  maintain  penny  lunches  at  five  white 
schools  and  one  colored  school. 

The  club  women  of  Birmingham  eight  years  ago  investi- 
gated the  worst  colored  slum  of  the  city,  and  so  roused  the 


Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment        25 

people  in  regard  to  conditions,  and  the  consequent  terrible 
human  waste,  that  a  $60,000  industrial  school  was  erected 
there,  which  has,  according  to  the  city  superintendent  of 
schools,  transformed  the  entire  neighborhood.  The  club 
women  are  in  touch  with  the  head  of  this  school,  who  serves 
as  a  medium  of  communication  between  the  best  people  of 
both  races.  The  club  women  arrange  for  talks  in  the  school 
by  doctors  and  nurses  on  the  care  of  children,  sanitation,  etc. 

In  Jackson,  Miss.,  cooperation  has  spread  from  clean-up 
campaigns  into  Baby  Week,  prize  garden  contests,  etc.  The 
colored  Civic  League,  led,  according  to  the  testimony  of  white 
club  women,  by  a  colored  woman  of  exceptionally  fine  type, 
cooperates  with  the  white  club  in  all  matters  of  health  and 
civic  betterment.  The  white  club  employs  a  white  visiting 
nurse,  who  serves  the  homes  of  both  races.  When  a  cyclone 
destroyed  a  Negro  section  of  the  city  this  nurse  was  estab- 
lished in  a  tent  among  the  stricken  people,  and  gave  her  entire 
time  to  them  until  their  suffering  was  remedied. 

In  Memphis  prominent  club  women  are  on  the  Advisory 
Board  of  a  colored  Industrial  Settlement  Home  enterprised 
by  a  big-hearted  colored  woman  for  the  poor  of  her  people. 
To  assist  in  raising  the  funds  needed  they  arranged  a  concert 
by  the  Fisk  Jubilee  singers  at  a  colored  auditorium,  advertised 
for  white  patronage,  and  announced  their  own  intention  of 
being  present.  A  large  audience  of  both  races  resulted,  as 
well  as  wide  publicity  for  the  excellent  work  of  the  settlement. 

Work  of  Colored  Club  Women. 

The  above  instances  are  sufficient  to  indicate  the  importance 
of  organized  white  women  as  a  factor  in  racial  adjustment; 
but  what  of  organized  colored  women,  the  other  factor  neces- 
sary to  success? 

Over  50,000  of  them  are  enrolled  in  their  National  Asso- 
ciation. They  have  organizations  in  thirty  states,  including 
all  those  of  the  South ;  and  at  one  of  their  biennials  the  writer 
heard  two  addresses  which  for  clearness,  restrained  and  force- 


26        Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment 

ful  speech,  and  a  moral  passion  rising  to  heights  of  genuine 
eloquence,  would  have  done  credit  to  speakers  of  any  race. 
The  Association  publishes  a  small  monthly  magazine,  edited 
from  Tuskegee  by  Mrs.  Booker  T.  Washington.  It  shows 
these  women  taking  their  part  in  women's  world-fight  against 
vice,  disease,  and  injustice;  struggling  for  better  health  con- 
ditions, for  home  and  school  improvement,  care  of  children, 
and  all  the  fundamental  interests  of  women,  to  whatever  race 
they  may  belong. 

These  clubs  maintain  homes  for  orphans,  old  folks,  outcast 
women,  w^orking  girls ;  and  friendly  shelters,  day  nurseries, 
and  missions.  The  Teachers'  Leagues  maintain  mothers' 
clubs,  and  classes  in  sewing  and  domestic  science.  Work  is 
done  for  colored  hospitals.  In  Virginia  and  Missouri  the 
State  Associations  have  secured  reform  schools  for  colored 
girls.  In  Virginia  the  organization  bought  the  farm  for  the 
school,  paying  $5,000  cash,  and  pays  about  one-third  of  the 
yearly  expense.  The  State,  with  generous  assistance  from 
individual  white  club  women,  erected  the  buildings,  and  pays 
two-thirds  of  the  running  expenses. 

The  Kentucky  State  Association  has  raised  in  two  years 
$3,000  for  improving  schoolhouses  and  helping  poor  children. 
South  Carolina  clubs  have  in  the  same  time  given  $1,100  for 
the  same  purposes,  and  over  $3,000  for  civic  and  uplift  work. 

The  National  Association  has  a  Department  of  Rural 
Work,  with  headquarters  at  Frankfort,  Ky.  The  chairman 
has  enrolled  in  her  own  State,  in  the  last  two  years,  6,000 
women  in  670  rural  clubs  and  362  school  leagues.  These 
country  women  have  in  that  time  raised  $2,000  for  their  club 
work.  Yet  only  15  of  these  670  clubs  have  joined  the  national 
organization. 

An  Opportunity. 

This  last  fact  reveals  one  of  the  greatest  opportunities  of 
our  white  clubs  for  a  social  service  to  which  our  whole  nation 


Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment        27 

would  be  indebted — the  opportunity  to  help  these  struggling, 
scattered,  handicapped  women  in  their  efforts  to  lift  the 
standards  of  their  people's  homes. 

Few  of  the  colored  clubs  can  afford  affiliation  with  their 
national  or  state  organizations.  Many  of  them,  doubtless,  do 
not  yet  see  the  need  for  wider  association;  they  simply  try 
to  minister,  in  a  more  or  less  haphazard  fashion,  to  local  needs 
for  which  their  slender  resources  are  pitifully  inadequate. 
But  undoubtedly  delegates'  expenses  and  dues  to  the  larger 
associations  are  beyond  the  means  of  most  of  them,  and  so 
they  not  only  miss  the  direction  and  inspiration  of  contact 
W'ith  their  best  women,  but,  missing  it,  work  blindly,  their 
spirit  of  service  often  misdirected  to  ineffectual  ends.  When 
their  race  so  suffers  for  service  this  waste  is  genuinely  tragic. 

For  most  of  these  mothers,  and  the  children  in  their  homes, 
our  white  w^omen  are  the  only  chance  for  better  things.  This 
is  also  true  in  the  North,  where,  especially  since  the  exodus, 
white  women  have  now  a  chance  for  this  Christian  and 
patriotic  service.  But  we  of  the  South  have  the  right  of 
leadership  in  this  matter,  and  the  signs  that  it  will  be  exercised 
are  not  wanting.  The  women  of  Arkansas,  of  Mississippi,  of 
Baltimore,  the  women  of  the  various  home  mission  bodies,  of 
the  W.  C.  T.  U.,  and  the  Y.  W.  C.  A.,  and  of  local  clubs  and 
societies  in  every  state,  are  opening  doors  of  service  to  these 
isolated,  unprivileged  women,  and  guiding  them  in  ways  they 
need  to  learn. 

In  a  Tennessee  town,  where  one  of  the  officers  of  the 
National  Association  spoke,  a  number  of  the  white  teachers 
went  to  hear  her  to  learn  what  the  colored  women  were  doing, 
that  they  might  help  them. 

A  Texas  judge  said  recently  to  the  writer  that  one  of  the 
greatest  needs  in  race  adjustment  was  for  white  teachers  to 
go  to  colored  teachers'  meetings  and  help  to  strengthen  their 
interest  in  the  moral,  hygienic,  and  industrial  development 
of  their  pupils,  both  in  school  and  in  home  life.  The  Southern 
Teachers"  Association,  a  few  years  ago,  went  on  record  as 


28        Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment 

believing  in  the  necessity  for  Southern  white  teachers  in 
colored  normal  schools.  For  fifty  years  the  Southern 
Methodist  Church,  at  its  General  Conferences,  has  officially 
received  fraternal  delegates  from  colored  Methodism,  and  has 
appointed  its  delegates  to  visit  them  in  return.  Colored  men 
and  vv^omen  are  introduced  and  speak  at  many  of  the  official 
gatherings  of  Southern  Presbyterian  and  Southern  Methodist 
missionary  women,  and  white  women  of  the  churches  and  of 
the  clubs  speak  in  colored  women's  meetings  when  asked. 

Would  it  not  be  well  for  the  club  organizations  to  recog- 
nize officially  the  need  for  these  points  of  communication 
between  the  women  of  the  two  races?  At  a  meeting  of  the 
Arkansas  Federation  seats  were  reserved  in  a  gallery  for 
colored  club  women,  who  not  only  came  and  were  helped,  but 
whose  interest  stimulated  the  white  women  to  helpful  coopera- 
tion in  many  places.  The  policy  of  the  Baltimore  Civic 
League  toward  the  Cooperative  Civic  League  might  be  equally 
useful  in  other  places,  and  in  the  state  organizations  also. 

Cooperation  in  "War  Times. 

The  war  is  accelerating  the  trend  toward  cooperation.  The 
need  for  food  conservation,  for  the  multiplied  services  of 
women,  is  widening  the  human  platform  on  which  the  races 
can  meet.  The  war  work  of  the  president  of  the  last  National 
Biennial,  one  of  the  most  distinguished  women  of  the  South, 
is  typical  of  what  thousands  of  women  are  doing  on  a  smaller 
scale.  In  response  to  a  call  from  the  State  of  Texas  she  gave 
her  entire  time,  for  many  weeks,  to  a  State-wide  campaign 
for  food  production  and  conservation,  speaking  several  times 
a  day  to  large  audiences  of  white  and  colored  people.  She 
told  the  writer  that  in  every  place  she  impressed  upon  the 
women  who  took  charge  of  the  local  work  the  necessity  for 
carrying  it  on,  in  all  its  phases,  among  both  races. 

The  Red  Cross  is  being  organized  among  the  colored  people 
throughout  the  South,  the  leaders  in  the  work  being  the  white 
club  women.    In  Atlanta,  where  preparations  for  a  great  base 


Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment        29 

hospital  go  forward,  the  chib  women  set  a  clay  for  a  hnen 
shower  for  it ;  and,  under  the  guidance  of  the  president  of 
the  State  Federation,  the  colored  women  were  asked  to 
obsei've  the  day,  which  they  did,  taking  a  generous  part  in  the 
common  service. 

This  has  been  the  theory  of  the  women  in  every  state,  in 
almost  every  county;  and  though  frequently  but  imperfectly 
carried  out,  the  main  effort  being  to  enlist  and  educate  white 
women,  yet  the  fact  remains  that  the  Great  War  is  bringing 
to  all  our  women  what  before  was  given  to  only  a  few — a 
consciousness  of  spheres  of  action  and  responsibilty  in  which 
the  bond  of  a  common  humanity  takes  precedence  of  the  bond 
of  race. 

Not  that  race  consciousness  is  weakened ;  that  would  mean 
disaster  to  white  and  to  black.  What  the  war  is  bringing  us 
is  a  realization  of  the  inseparableness  of  the  interests  of  the 
two  races  in  economic  life  and  in  all  that  makes  for  the  moral 
and  physical  health  of  our  communities.  This  understanding, 
not  by  the  few,  but  by  the  masses,  is  a  necessary  part  of  the 
process  by  which  the  mists  of  prejudice  will  be  lifted  and  the 
true  lines  of  racial  demarcation  will  stand  clear  and  immov- 
able in  the  light  of  conscience  and  common  sense. 

A  ftuestion  of  Womanhood. 

The  facts  herein  given,  the  trend  of  the  movements 
recorded,  tend  toward  one  end :  the  recognition  of  woman- 
hood as  a  thing  deeper  even  than  race,  a  thing  for  all  women 
to  protect.  The  full  recognition  of  this  truth  will  do  more  to 
settle  "the  race  question"  than  all  other  things  combined,  for 
all  other  things  needed  will  come  out  of  it — full  racial  justice, 
true  racial  separateness,  full  human  cooperation  and  respect. 
The  status  of  the  Negro  woman  and  the  Negro  home  in  the 
minds  of  the  privileged  white  women  will  determine  the  status 
of  the  race.  Among  all  races,  in  all  times,  it  has  been  the  lot 
of  the  women  to  bear  the  unbearable  things.  As  they  have 
won  respect  and  protection  the  race  has  climbed  toward  free- 


30        Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment 

dom  and  self-control.  There  is  no  way  to  raise  the  Negroes 
except  by  this  world-old  process,  and  no  one  can  set  it  in 
motion  as  can  our  Southern  white  women. 

It  is  time  for  us  to  take  stock  of  our  responsibilities.  Not 
long  ago  the  writer  heard  a  trivial,  yet  most  serious,  aspect  of 
the  matter  put  by  a  Southern  Methodist  presiding  elder. 

"You  white  women,"  he  said,  "are  the  main  obstacle  to 
Negro  morality.  You  teach  us  men,  and  your  children — your 
sons — that  morality  in  a  Negro  woman  is  beneath  a  white 
person's  notice." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  a  hearer  demanded  indignantly. 

"This :  Social  distinctions,  which  we  all  know  are  estab- 
lished forever,  like  the  mountains — know  it  so  well  that  it  is 
a  waste  of  breath  ever  to  say  it — are  forever  being  confused 
in  your  thoughts  with  distinctions  in  justice  and  in  law.  This 
class  of  distinctions  must  be  abolished,  for  the  sake  of  our 
own  civilization,  if  for  nothing  else.  For  instance:  You 
refuse  to  give  a  Negro  wife  her  legal  title  of  'j\Irs.'  It's  not 
a  social  matter,  as  so  many  think;  it's  a  legal  right,  defining 
a  legal  status  fundamentally  necessary  to  civilization.  But 
you  Christian  women  refuse  it  to  women  sufficiently  handi- 
capped, heaven  knows,  without  this  added  difficulty.  I'm  not 
talking  about  your  cooks ;  in  the  kitchen  a  woman  of  no  race 
would  expect  the  use  of  her  legal  title ;  but  you  refuse  it  to 
the  race.  You  make  no  distinction  between  the  Christian  wife 
and  the  mother  of  half-a-dozen  haphazard  mulattoes ;  they're 
all  'Sally'  to  you.  You  say,  in  effect,  that  morality  in  a  Negro 
doesn't  count.  You  teach  your  sons  that  from  babyhood. 
The  Negro  women  pay  for  it;  but  by  God's  law  your  sons 
pay,  too — pay  a  debt  more  yours  than  theirs.  And  the 
daughters  they  marry  pay,  too." 

A  few  years  ago  Dr.  John  R.  Mott  called  in  Atlanta  a 
Christian  Student  Conference  for  colored  students.  Five 
hundred  of  them  came,  from  eighteen  states.  Seventy  white 
people,  men  and  women,  mostly  Southern,  were  also  present — 
bishops,  missionary  secretaries,  Y.  M.  and  Y.  \\'.  C.  A.  folk, 


Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment        31 

college  presidents,  teachers,  and  people  interested  in  Christian 
work.  Among  the  addresses  was  one  by  A.  M.  Trawick,  a 
Southern  man  and  a  secretary  of  the  International  Y.  M. 
C.  A.,  on  the  rights  of  the  Negro  woman  and  the  Negro  home; 
In  an  informal  after-meeting  for  women  a  colored  woman 
spoke.  She  was  known  to  some  of  the  white  women  present 
for  her  service  to  her  people,  and  especially  for  her  efforts  to 
shield  the  girls  of  her  race.  She  confessed  her  long  hatred 
of  white  men;  and,  beyond  them,  her  hate  and  bitterness 
toward  white  women  for  their  scornful  indifference  toward 
a  matter  so  tragically  vital  to  the  welfare  and  honor  of  both 
races.  Her  sense  of  wrong,  her  anguish  and  shame,  her  fierce 
contempt  for  white  religion  scorched  her  white  hearers  like 
flame. 

"And  to-day,"  she  said,  controlling  with  great  eft'ort  her 
shaken  voice,  "there  was  a  miracle!  A  white  man — a  zvhite 
man! — stood  up,  not  just  before  Negroes,  but  before  white 
people,  before  white  women,  and  said  that  colored  women 
should  have  protection  and  respect.     It  didn't  seem  possible. 

That  I  should  have  lived  to "     Tears  choked  her.     She 

stood  shaking  with  emotion,  tears  pouring  down  her  face,  her 
drenched  eyes  fixed  on  the  little  group  of  Southern  white 
women,  from  whom  she  apparently  asked  nothing,  and 
expected  less. 

Is  it  not  time  for  the  increasing  body  of  our  women  who 
care  for  the  womanhood  of  all  races  to  make  their  attitude 
known?  To  stand  openly,  and  together,  for  the  protection  of 
these  women  and  their  homes? 

"The  Forward  Look." 

One  of  the  first  steps  necessary  in  this  protection  is  to  bury 
the  Old  Black  Mammy.  She  may  still  be  loved  and  honored. 
Her  being  dead  is  no  bar  to  affection;  but  it  certainly  should 
bar  a  daily  association  with  her  corpse  which  threatens  the 
corruption  of  sentiment  into  sentimentality.  Wrenched  from 
a  past  environment  to  which  alone  she  belonged,  and  set  up, 


32        Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment 

fetish-like,  in  a  life  in  which  she  can  have  no  rightful  place, 
she  expresses  an  attitude  of  the  white  mind  which  is  at  once 
ludicrous,  tragic,  and  fraught  with  future  peril. 

We  must  face  the  future,  not  the  past.  Yet  scores  of 
thousands  of  Southern  folk,  seriously  and  kindly  considering 
the  Negro  problem,  will  insist  upon  the  South's  friendliness 
to  the  Negroes,  and  offer  as  proof,  not  efforts  being  made  to 
meet  their  present  needs,  but  the  touching  and  universal  cult 
of  the  Old  Black  Mammy! 

She  deserves  a  funeral,  bless  her;  and  she  certainly  needs 
one — a  competent,  permanent  funeral  that  will  not  have  to  be 
done  over  again  every  few  days.  Her  removal  will  clear  the 
atmosphere  and  enable  us  to  see  the  old  soul's  grand- 
daughters, to  whom  we  must  in  justice  pay  something  of  the 
debt  we  so  freely  acknowledge  to  her.  We  must  lay  aside  the 
mental  attitude  of  the  past — the  attitude  of  a  people  toward 
a  slave  race — and  face  the  present  with  a  forward  look.  To 
accomplish  this  is  the  task  of  women,  and  by  all  the  tokens 
they  are  accepting  it  as  theirs.  They  have  begun  in  this 
territory,  as  here  shown,  that  spiritual  pioneering  which  is 
their  chief,  though  by  no  means  their  only,  public  function. 
And  in  exploring  these  untried  paths  in  a  changed  world  they 
are  once  again  discovering  that  immemorial  country  in  which, 
through  all  the  ages,  human  souls  have  been  working  out,  in 
finer  ideals  of  righteousness  and  of  service,  a  better  justice 
for  the  Race  of  Man. 


OCCASIONAL  PAPERS   PUBLISHED   BY   THE   TRUSTEES   OF 
THE  JOHN  F.  SLATER  FUND. 


1.  Documents  Relating  to  the  Origin  and  Work  of  the  Slater  Trustees, 

1894. 

2.  A  Brief  Memoir  of  the  Life  of  John  F.  Slater,  by  Rev.  S.  H.  Howe, 

D.  D..  1894. 

3.  Education  of  the  Negroes  Since  1860,  by  J.  L.  M.  Curry,  LL.  D.,  1894. 

4.  Statistics  of  the  Negroes  in  the  United  States,  by  Henry  Gannett, 

of  the  United  States  Geological  Survey,   1894. 

5.  Difficulties,  Complications,  and  Limitations  Connected  with  the  Edu- 

cation of  the  Negro,  by  J.  L.  M.  Currj^  LL.  D.,  1895. 

6.  Occupations  of  the  Negroes,  by  Henry  Gannett,  of  the  United  States 

Geological  Survey,  1895. 

7.  The  Negroes  and  the  Atlanta  Exposition,  by  Alice  M.  Bacon,  of  the 

Hampton  Normal  and  Industrial  Institute,  Virginia,   1896. 

8.  Report  of  the  Fifth  Tuskegee  Negro  Conference,  by  John  Quincy 

Johnson,  1896. 

9.  A  Report  Concerning  the  Colored  Women  of  the  South,  by  Mrs.  E.  C. 

Hobson  and  Mrs.  C.  E.  Hopkins,  1896. 

10.  A  Study  in  Black  and  White,  by  Daniel  C.  Oilman,  1897. 

11.  The  South  and  the  Negro,  by  Bishop  Charles  B.   Galloway,  of  the 

Methodist  Episcopal  Church,   South,   1904. 

12.  Report  of  the  Society  of  the  Southern  Industrial  Classes,  Norfolk, 

Va.,  1907. 

13.  Report  on  Negro  Universities  in  the  South,  by  W.  T.  B.  WilHams, 

1913. 

14.  County  Teacher  Training  Schools  for  Negroes,  1913. 

15.  Duplication  of  Schools  for  Negro  Youth,  by  W.  T.  B.  Williams,  1914. 

16.  Sketch  of  Bishop  Atticus  G.  Haywood,  by  Rev.  G.  B.  Winton,  D.  D., 

1915. 

17.  Memorial  Addresses  in  Honor  of  Dr.  Booker  T.  Washington,  1916. 

18.  Suggested  Course  for  County  Training  Schools,  1917. 

19.  Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment,  by  L.  H.  Hammond,  1917. 


* 


UNiVERSlTY  OF  NC  AT  CHAPEL  HILL 


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